Im not a Blackberry user, but wanted to ask a question or two thats nagging me. Please be patient with me LOL

I have carried a smartphone for a number of years now. I have had a treo 700p, and recently purchased a XV6800 Windows Mobile 6.1 unit. I have also had various PDA's over the years, my favorite having been the Palm Tungsten, which was eventually stolen. I also had a Dell Axim PDA with Windows Mobile that I could connect to my phone via a wireless connection. Windows Mobile seemed clumsy to me, and I eventually went to the Palm Treo to have both units in one.

My phone carrier is Verizon and I am thrilled with them. The phone is a company issued device and we have an Exchange 2003 server which handles email, calendars bla bla bla. Syncing with the Exchange Server is a must for me. I run the IT department at my office so I have a better than good knowledge of IT issues.

I loved the Palm device because of its simplicity. It recently became less than functional, just worn out I suppose.

So I picked the XV6800 last week. I have it set up, yet there is something about it I dont like, but I cant put my finger on it. I dont like the tiny menus, and dont know why Microsoft seems to think that my phone needs to have the look and feel of a tiny PC.

Of course, it read MS Office documents natively. And I can remote access my PC if I need to. So thats a comfort zone for me, a PC user. I am not crazy about the slide out keyboard, its just a little clumsy for me. (Perhaps I should have picked out the Palm 750w?)

Windows mobile seems to tire easily and I hate the windows explorer browser.

But is the Blackberry better? My wife carries a BB Curve and its been reliable for her. She isnt what I consider a power user however. She checks PoP mail does some surfing, takes pictures, and thats about it.

I looked at the Curve, the Worldphone and the Storm. I didnt like the Storm at all. I like the look and feel of the Worldphone, but dont like that it doesnt have a camera. Not sure on the curve, but I do like the phones form factor.

So, being an inquiring mind, I thought I would ask the experts here.

Why would you recommend the Blackberry?
Is Blackberry here to stay?
Is the BB going to sync with my exchange server? (Verizon says that it will be using a service from verizon)
Is the Blackberry capable of editing office documents?
Are there things I can do on a BB that I cant on Win Mobile?
Would our organization benefit from standardizing on BB?

Please let me know if you think I would like the Blackberry, or if an upcoming BB would be better suited for me, or just stick with me Windows device.

When I switched from being a long-term Palm user to a Windows Mobile device three years ago, I was bemused that the Palm by virtue of Dataviz Docs to Go handled Word and Excel better than the Windows Mobile device. Docs to Go (Standard) comes with every BlackBerry, so you needn't worry about being able to handle documents and spreadsheets and presentations, especially if you upgrade to Docs to Go Pro.

It was also a shock going from the intuitive Palm interface to the user-unfriendly Windows Mobile. Not to mention all the crashes.

I'd put RIM OS in between the two. It's mostly robust and reliable and fairly intuitive, but lacks some of the bells and whistles that are on the other two. But more and more software is becoming available as developers realise that BlackBerry is most definitely here to stay.

Why would you recommend the Blackberry?
Is Blackberry here to stay?
Is the BB going to sync with my exchange server? (Verizon says that it will be using a service from verizon)
Is the Blackberry capable of editing office documents?
Are there things I can do on a BB that I cant on Win Mobile?
Would our organization benefit from standardizing on BB?

Please let me know if you think I would like the Blackberry, or if an upcoming BB would be better suited for me, or just stick with me Windows device.

Why would you recommend the Blackberry? It's bulletproof OS, amazing phone quality on the 8330, this BBF help site, overall coolness of a bb.
Is Blackberry here to stay? - Absolutely
Is the BB going to sync with my exchange server? (Verizon says that it will be using a service from verizon) - If your company has Blackberry Enterprise Server installed, it will sync.
Is the Blackberry capable of editing office documents? - OS 4.5 has DocsToGo installed but isn't exactly a full feature Office editor unless you upgrade to the pro version.
Are there things I can do on a BB that I cant on Win Mobile? - Yes, you can actually use it for a whole day without having to reboot. Also, the 8330 has been regarded as having the absolute best call quality of any phone on Verizon.
Would our organization benefit from standardizing on BB? - Depends on your organization, number of users, budget, experience.

My personal phone is a moto q9c (11 months in use, I do like it). My work phone is a curve.

I am upgrading my personal phone to a curve in one month when I am up for a discount. I've used both heavily, like the winmo....LOVE the curve. Can't wait to have one on the personal side since mine is a bit locked down.

Just wanted to note - you can actually use a blackberry one handed - I whip it out from my belt at a stoplight, enter the password (single handed use), check email, reply sometimes and stick it back in the belt in about 30 seconds - try that with any other smartphone.

Also you will need the BES server to sync to exchange, but if you have less than 25 users then RIM has a cheaper option for you - in the form of the small business server.

Also - I'd ask that you look at the Bold as an option to the curve - if you have 3G in your area, and as a business user I am sure that you can appreciate being able to send and recieve email while talking on the phone.

Just wanted to note - you can actually use a blackberry one handed - I whip it out from my belt at a stoplight, enter the password (single handed use), check email, reply sometimes and stick it back in the belt in about 30 seconds - try that with any other smartphone.

Also you will need the BES server to sync to exchange, but if you have less than 25 users then RIM has a cheaper option for you - in the form of the small business server.

Also - I'd ask that you look at the Bold as an option to the curve - if you have 3G in your area, and as a business user I am sure that you can appreciate being able to send and recieve email while talking on the phone.

Dude - you can check email one handed with virtually any smartphone - I do exactly what you described all the time with my Q9c.

And the Bold is on ATT - looks like the OP is a VZW guy.

OP - Fanboy is correct about the lower cost small biz server - and you will need it to sync email, calendar, contacts and task OTA. That is one really nice thing about WM - ActiveSync is free with Exchange and pushes all of these updates to your phone in real-time and vice-versa. However, it sounds like a BB might be better for you.